


dharma

by eighthchakra



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-15
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-04 18:24:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1788793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eighthchakra/pseuds/eighthchakra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had a name once. Perhaps they all did.</p><p>(repost from my FF account, eighth chakra)</p>
            </blockquote>





	dharma

**Author's Note:**

> because the Equalists deserved better (also, the FF version contained these Chinese characters that I'm pretty sure are incorrect, so this version is less.....blegh)

He had a name once. Perhaps they all did.

1.

He'd remember in glimpses, snatches. Grass. Reeds. A piece of summer sky. Chinese characters hanging from the ceiling like jars of fireflies or astronomy sets. Or perhaps that was just Amon's mask; phosphorescent, glowing, brighter in the shadows than underneath the klieg lights of the stadium.

2.

He lost his name the first time he put on his gloves. He wasn't the Lieutenant back then, just a blur among hundreds. A martyr. A sacrifice. Maybe it was because he accidentally electrocuted himself or because a masked little girl blocked his chi in two seconds that he realized that he had forgotten his name. Voiceless cicada. Cantharides.

"You don't forget names," Amon had told him, "because to forget would mean to remember."

"Then-"

"You lose them."

"But won't losing them mean finding them in the future?"

"Once they're lost, some things cannot be found."

3.

He found his name in bits and pieces.

He was Mao. Grass. Reeds. A farmer's boy. A child with long, dark hair watering an ox. Mao. Mao. Mao. Mao. Mao. The fireflies were long gone, the phosphorescence, and he had to remind himself of who he was. Bits and pieces. Grass. Reeds. Summer sky.

Or perhaps he was Ton. Tea leaves and parchment. A young history scholar, lover of folklore, friend of spirits. But the myths only spoke of benders, of their chi and their all-consuming purpose. No one wanted to read about boys who only threw stones in rivers without making them swell with power. Such boys grow up to become drowned men. 

Maybe he was Pin. Streetrat far too kind to scuttle with the rest of the mice. Somehow, he always smelled like soap and incense no matter how deep into Republic City's underbelly he crawled. He drew glowflies and lizard crows. He smiled without teeth. 

No one was smiling now. 

4.

The Lieutenant was gone. Mao was, too. And Kwon. And everyone else. 

5.

He woke up buried under debris. They would find him, arrest him later. Accessory to the crime. You have the right to remain silent. But lost things did not have names. They would be condemning a gust of wind, a ghost, maybe a face if they looked hard enough.

(But they never did).


End file.
